Book Review of “The Man in the Bunker” by Rory Clements

 

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A new twist on the ‘search for Hitler.’

 

This is a well-researched novel about a confused and yet pivotal period in European history.

It involves several characters from the author’s previous novel “Hitler’s Secret” but isn’t exactly a sequel because there is no reference to that story, even though it could have been relevant.

In the immediate post-war period there are shortages and hardship in a Britain struggling to return to peaceful progress but still not perceiving that the defeat of Hitler might have left Stalin poised for further advance in a westerly direction. In Germany and Austria there is still chaos and effective anarchy, in that soldiers of the allied powers trying to impose “rule by laws rather than fear” are able to act arbitrarily and even murder as they please. One of the “good” characters is determined to use an investigation into Hitler’s real fate and current whereabouts as a sort of one-man witness extermination programme. More than one of his superiors threatens him with retribution for this, but the threats, for one reason or another are all empty. Life is very cheap in occupied Germany and Austria. Life in liberated France is governed by an unhappy mixture of self-righteous retribution and hypocrisy: the corrosive aftermath of NAZI conquest.

The OSS and MI6 decide to send professor Tom Wilde, from the previous novel, to Berlin, Nuremberg and Bavaria to find out what really happened to Hitler in his bunker and Wilde is encouraged and skilfully manipulated by a senior Russian SMERSH officer. For most of the novel the only real evidence that something might have happened other than the official narrative of Hitler’s suicide in the bunker, consists of lethal action against anyone asking questions. SMERSH, of course, “firmly believe” that Western intelligence agencies have Hitler in secure and comfortable custody and are planning to use him for their own wicked purposes. There is a twist in the tale about the outcome of the search for Hitler, but there’s also a twist in the tale about what, exactly, SMERSH wants to get out of the OSS/MI6 search for Hitler.

The Man in the Bunker by Rory Clements is published by Bonnier Books on the 20^th of January 2022.

Book Review of Lethal Game by Charlie Gallagher

 

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You (should) know you’re dealing with a psychopath when someone else is to blame

The above headline does not betray the plot of the second Joel Norris/ Lucy Rose novel (the author is clever), but in real life this is a good guide to dealing with psychopaths. The problem the two detectives in the novel have with their psychopathic killer is the level of sophistication with which blame is transferred -and that also translates to real life.

This is an effective page-turner of a thriller and much of the urgency comes from the poor relations the two leading characters have with colleagues: it’s a race against incompetent or uncaring intervention as much as it is a race against a clock set by the murderer. (One is reminded of the real life case of Stephen Port, now being examined in the coroner’s court, where a less dramatic but equivalent race was lost.)

What the public sees is a police service rendered helpless by its own rules, procedures and above all, assumptions. What they want are police detectives who will cut through all these to get to the truth and this is what Charlie Gallagher supplies in this novel. Doing the same thing in real life is going to be much more problematic, but if this novel succeeds to the extent that I think it will, it will be proof that the public are currently very frustrated with the police. “Dixon of Dock Green” spoke to a public who could trust the police and not be let down all that often. The Joel Norris and Lucy Rose series speaks to a public who expect senior officers to queer the pitch for any officer who’s actually trying to do the right thing against the odds. Full marks to the author for tapping into this, but the fact that the public is receptive to such a narrative is a serious problem.

Lethal Game by Charlie Gallagher is published by Avon Books on the 11^th of November 2021